Chapter 20

Mewtwo sat in one of the smaller Pokémon dining halls, his gaze trained on his two teammates as they ate. His Trainer had told them of the argument that had broken out between her and himself, and now an awkward silence hung in the air around them.

He began to ponder whether or not staying with this girl was even worth the promise of returning to his full strength. Surely he could become much stronger on his own, and although his power was still not what it once was, it was still formidable. The girl has done well, his consciousness whispered to him, and Mewtwo shoved the thought aside. She was no different than any other Trainer.

As the others finished their meal, Mewtwo arose and left them, heading for the section of the Pokémon Center normally reserved for Trainers. He had requested a private room away from the others and their demanding, questioning silence, and since the number of Trainers in the Center were few, Nurse Joy had allowed it. His mind continued to whirl with thought of his interactions with the others over the last few days, even as he crawled into bed and pulled the covers over himself and sank into a fitful sleep.

He could hear the subtle gurgle of air bubbles in water, and although he tried to to open his eyes, his body did not obey him. Instead his gaze turned inward to the landscape of his mind. Instead of a smouldering gray wasteland filled with gray-brown spires, and rivers made of murky orange stasis fluid hanging over a sickly, yellow-green sky - the mindscape he was accustomed to seeing whenever he looked within his own mind- the mindscape that greeted him was a vast violet void. It was the mind of a new being, Mewtwo realized.

A sudden thought slipped into his awareness, Who am I? Where am I? What am I?

'...hasn't gained consciousness...'

'...Other vital signs are strong...'

'We're measuring brain activity...'

I sense others near me...but what are those strange sounds they make? For reasons he couldn't fathom, the nature of what he was hearing wasn't making any sense.

- Those are words! They're talking!- a voice said, and Mewtwo turned, gasping softly at the presence of another mind. A bright red light flared into existence in the barren dreamscape a few feet away from him, and began to take shape.

- What're you?- he asked the strange light. It was warm and bright in the dark void Mewtwo found himself in, and he decided that he liked it simply because it was different than everything else.

-Whatdaya mean? I'm a girl!- the being said in her piping voice, and just the sound of it made Mewtwo feel good inside. - A person, - the voice clarified as the light took on a distinctive shape.

-A person?, - Mewtwo heard himself ask as he looked at the girl, feeling confused. Was this girl like him? He still didn't know who or what he was. -Am I a person?- he decided to ask the being.

-No, - the person said, making a light tinkling sound that changed the way the word sounded as the girl said it. Mewtwo decided he liked the sound - he would have to ask the person about it later. The girl came very close to him, studying him for a moment. -Well, - the girl finally said, -You look like a Pokémon, but you talk like a person. I didn't know a Pokémon could talk like a person, - she continued happily.

-Pokémon? Person? What're those? Which one am I?- Mewtwo asked her, confusion swirling in his mind.

- Maybe it matters to you if you're a Pokémon or a person, but not to me, - she said, smiling and spinning in an excited circle. - I guess if you're here it means you must be the same as all of us are, - she told him, and three other beings materialized near them. Unlike the person, Mewtwo found that he knew what these were, and something about a voice saying names in his head that matched the sounds these creatures- Pokémon - made flashed through his mind, but for the moment he dismissed it.

The girl lead the group across the vast dreamscape before them, talking to them as she did so. - Everybody here's a copy, that's why there's a two after all of our names. -

-I don't understand, - Mewtwo whined, following the movements of the others as they spin in a giddy circle. The dreamscape began to take on a more magenta hue and swirl about them.

- They call me Ambertwo, but I'm still really Amber, - she said as they continued to spin about. The Charmander sneezed out a small flame, which caused Amber to make the same light tinkling sound again. Mewtwo found that he didn't want the sound to end.

Amber lead them across the strange, blank mindscape to somewhere different. -I call this my remember place, - she told them as they drifted across the scenery of houses and trees and streetlights before them. It looked like a nice neighborhood, Amber's mindscape, and he realized that her mind recognized it as part of a small suburb in Lavender Town. -This is where I used to live. -

Suddenly, a bright sphere of white energy appeared high above them, an Mewtwo looked up at it. -What is that? - he asked Amber, curious as to the identity of the strange object that was now dominating the sky above her dreamscape as white fluffy clouds also became visible with the light the sphere brought.

-That's the sun, - Amber told him, and somehow the sun reminded Mewtwo of Amber, for it too was warm and bright, like her aura.

-What is is for?-

-It makes the whole world bright, and it keeps us warm all day, - she explained. Something powerful and invisible pushed itself against him, and Mewtwo braced himself covering his face with his arms, as Amber turned away from it slightly. -That's called wind. -

-Wind? - Mewtwo wasn't certain as to whether or not he liked it yet.

- The wind helps us along, - Amber told him. -Sometimes it's soft and sometimes it's very strong. - The sky began to change, and turn into a kaleidoscope of fiery colors. -And that's the sunset,- Amber told him as they watched the sky. -That's when the sun says 'Goodnight, see you tomorrow!' -

The sky grew dark, and tiny pinpricks of light filled it, along with another round sphere like the first. - Is that a sun? - Mewtwo asked Amber, perplexed.

-No, that's the moon, - she said, making her tinkling sound again.- And the stars are the little lights that twinkle all night, just so we won't feel alone in the dark. -

Mewtwo watched as the Charmander and then the Bulbasaur and Squirtle dissolved before them into sparkling blue lights that were reminiscent of the stars above them. He moved over to where they had once been, twisting his body in the air as he tried to find where they had gone.

The same blue light began to sparkle around Amber, and as it did, a look of calm acceptance crossed her face.

-What's wrong Amber? - Mewtwo asked, seeing tiredness in her bright green eyes. -What's happening? - She's dying, Mewtwo's adult mind realized it, and his mind rebelled against the thought strongly.

-It feels like...it's time...to say goodbye...- she told him, her telepathic voice weakening as she began to fade.

-Goodbye?- 'No, no no, this cannot be happening! Mewtwo's mind snapped back to its' adult state as his thoughts began to race. 'I cannot lose her as well, she is the only being that has ever cared for me, she must not leave this world now!' And yet his own knowledge reminded him of the empty stasis tanks in the lab, the fact that she was never in his conscious life...'

Amber's dreamscape began to fade to black around them, and Mewtwo felt something well from up within him that he had never felt before. - I feel... something.- The strange emotion constricted in his chest uncomfortable, and Mewtwo felt something wet slip down the side of his face. - What're...what're these? -

- Those're tears, you're crying, - Amber said, and Mewtwo's adult mind was dumbfounded by what was happening around him.

-Crying?- 'I do not cry, I do not, never...' Mewtwo lost himself in the power of the emotions running through him.

-My Daddy used to tell me a bedtime story, that when Pokémon are sad, and they cry, their tears are filled with life. -

I'm so sad...- Grief enveloped Mewtwo like a dark shroud, wrapping him in its dark embrace.

-I have to go– -

-Why?!- She couldn't go, she could not leave him here in this dark void, the place, this world all alone! She would not!

-I don't know, - she said honestly. -But it's all right. - She gave him one last smile as she said, -Thank you for caring about me. You should be happy!-

Happy? But she was failing, fading, dying, and she tells him he should be happy! Why? Why now, when he was so filled with sorrow to the point he felt as if it would overflow from within him.

-You're alive, and life is wonderful...-

-Amber! Please don't go! Come back! - He would give anything to be with her, wherever she was, he didn't care if he lived or died so long as he was with her, it didn't matter nothing mattered anymore, nothing, nothing, nothing...NO!

-AMBER!-

He sat upright in the bed, his body drenched in sweat and tangled in the sheets as tears flowed down his face. He realized that he had screamed her name aloud as he awoke, and moaned it again, his grief stripping him of all his former dignity. Burying his face in his hands, he allowed the tears his unconscious mind had been withholding from him for years to slip past his splayed fingers. His chest heaved as he sobbed, and although he desperately wanted to stop, lest someone find him in such a pitiful state, he didn't know how to stop.

"Mewtwo?What's wrong?" Casting the tear filled eye that wasn't obscured by his hands upwards towards the sound as his pupils retracted in the terror of having another being present, Mewtwo found Sal standing there. Her white mane was tangled in her hairtie, she had neglected to take it out, as usual, and wispy strands blew in the soft breeze created by the open window beside his bed. Her violet blanket was wrapped about her shoulders like a cape.

-GET OUT!- Mewtwo yelled, not caring if he woke someone or not, not caring if her hurt her at all as her flung her backwards and she struck the wall hard, not caring about the blood that came from her right hand as she pulled it away from the back of her head. He didn't care when she futilely tried to fight him back with her own powers, but what stopped him was the look on her face as she looked at him. Something about it made Mewtwo's marshaled facade of anger break, and he realized that it reminded him of Amber. -Leave me be... - he choked out, as the tears continued to flow.

"Not until you tell me what's wrong...please," she said, coming to the foot to his bed.

-They made me forget her!- He shouted angrily, punching the bed in front of him. -They made me forget... -

Sal came closer to him, sitting beside him before hesitantly wrapping her arms around him into an embrace. It was warm, and comforting, and just reminded him even more of Amber, but at the same time, he didn't want this girl to let him go. Unsure of what to do, he allowed his arms to encircle her, and she only held him tighter as he cried. He vaguely realized that he was dampening her with his tears, but she didn't seem to mind and soothing words flowed from her lips. Her mind reached out to his hesitantly, and as he accepted her mental touch, he realized how raw her mind was, how much he had damaged her by prying into her mind as he had before, how mistaken he had been in his actions towards this human...Sal.

Something shifted in his mental awareness, and Mewtwo looked down at himself, startled to find that his aura was a flickering white - the sign of a being about to undergo a serious aura change. Accepting this, he reached out to Sal's mind again.

He was suddenly overwhelmed by a torrent of information- memories, names, faces, places - many things that didn't make sense to him at first. He realized that the memories he was seeing were from Sal's mind, but the more he tried to consciously grasp at them, the more they seemed to slip away, spiraling down into somewhere where he couldn't reach them.

Casting his mind's eye about, he found himself in a dreamscape, but it was definitely not his own. A purple sky hung over him, and as he gazed at the land around him, saw that it was covered in white flowers. Picking one delicately, he found that it was not a real flower, but one made of paper, as were all the others about him. Curious, he began to walk up the large hill that rolled before him, moving carefully so as not to desecrate the strangely beautiful place he found himself in.

As he neared the top of the hill, he spotted Sal, her back to him as her long hair blew freely in the wind. She wore a gown made of dazzling white feathers, and she had several of them tied in her long hair as well as it tumbled down her back.

-Sal!- he called out her, and she turned, her eyes widening at the sight of his presence. Instead of Damien's necklace, a circular silver pendant that bore a white feathery wyvern with a blue sapphire for an eye hung in its place about her neck.

-How did you get in here?- she asked him. -No one's supposed to be here. -

-Then this place is within your mind?- Mewtwo asked her, and she nodded slowly.

-Psychics all have different mindscapes, just a any other person goes through different mental states, and the mindscape becomes different as time passes. But for you to come here...- She sighed. - This is my most personal dreamscape, the one closest to my psyche, - she told him simply.

-I am sorry. I did not mean to intrude, - Mewtwo said, embarrassed at having stumbled into such a sacred portion of her mind. - I simply found myself here. -

- After...- she frowned as if trying to recall something. -What happened to us...as our minds met? - she asked him. - I've never touched another psychic's mind before, but I don't think this is normal... -

-No it is not, - Mewtwo confirmed as he neared her, climbing over the hill to see what she gazed beyond it, - But I do not understand– - His sentence ended in a gasp as he beheld the scene before him.

A valley of blue fire and brimstone burned into the landscape, slicing into the pristine countryside. The patterns along the blackened earth reminded Mewtwo of the destroyed fields of his own mindscape, and he asked her quietly, -Did I do this?-

- It'll heal, - she said quietly, fumbling with the feathers on her dress, - As all things do with time. -

-I am sorry, - Mewtwo said. -I forgot how fragile your mind was. - A slight breeze ruffled his fur as a curious look reflected itself in his eyes. - Why the dress? You never struck me as someone who would clothe themselves so formally, - he mused.

- I have no idea, - she said. - Every time I find myself here, it's always wearing this dress, with this necklace, even when I was little. I know it's important because everything here is symbolic of something, but I don't know what. -

-It suits you, - Mewtwo said, causing Sal to jump out of surprise and mutter an uncertain thanks, to which Mewtwo inclined his head.

-It is not good for us to be here for too long, especially myself, - Mewtwo told her. As he retraced his presence from her, the whole world around them seemed to fade away.

Mewtwo opened his eyes slowly, finding that he had fallen onto his back, and that Sal had fallen on top of him, still embracing him. Unsure of what to do, Mewtwo simply awaited for her to awaken.

He watched as her eyes opened slowly, and somehow they seemed different to him – familiar, but not quite her own as as he recalled them. But they were the same as her eyes had been within her mind, of that he was sure.

She blinked at him in slight confusion, and as she realized her current position, she extracted herself from the bed. As she turned to leave, something inside Mewtwo shattered, and he reached out to clutch at her slender wrist as she turned away.

-Stay...please. -

And to his amazement, she did.